


Kin-strife for Christmas

by Dwimordene



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: 3rd Age - The Kings, General
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2008-12-05
Packaged: 2018-04-06 08:31:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4215013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dwimordene/pseuds/Dwimordene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.<br/><br/>The road to power is not paved with good intentions. Here are all twenty-four Kin-strife drabbles for the 2008 <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/there_n_back/">There and Back Again</a> Advent Calendar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Anchoress

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

The _Weigh and Anchor_ 's right down in The Bottle, corner of North meets Southeastwest. Edge of everything Pelargir in the Row.  
  
Hardship's Ranilo's lot: dead husband, hungry children, she drove their few horses south. Sold them and herself to Stonefolk. Good man, a taverner – dead next year in a tavern brawl.  
  
There's lots of that these days: hard times mean hard drinking and loose fists. She keeps her girls in back, pays the greencoats off. No need of Trouble when there's troubles, and she's steady as they come.  
  
It's horse-sense: "No other way to be," she says, "For that's life."

* * *

**Author's Note** : All of these drabbles can be seen as set in the same universe as [Descent](http://www.tolkienfanfiction.com/Story_Read_Head.php?STid=842) and [A Very Rain of Sparrows](http://www.tolkienfanfiction.com/Story_Read_Head.php?STid=841) and they take advantage of some of the names and ideas developed there, like "the Row," "Southron Street," and the Pelargir guardsmen being called "greencoats." Hopefully, context will be suggestive enough not to lose anyone who hasn't read those stories.

Prompt: bottle   



	2. Southern Lights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

They knew him well on Rath Tirin, on Southron Street. Every morn, when fog lay still on Pelargir's wharf, he came clinking by - the Bottle Boy, Audaliufs.  
  
For sandy Harad sold ale in glass that nightly broke. Audaliufs would fetch it, turn a coin from the glass-smith.  
  
All hands and face, Audaliufs, and wordless sound. He'd the heavy tongue, Haradrim said. But a happy child – when day broke bright, he clapped and capered before his 'treasure' all alight.  
  
Poor sunless lad, they thought, and 'paid' a bite of first-bread, honoring ancient duty: _Burn with kindness for the Gentled Ones._

* * *

Prompt: bottle, wharf  



	3. Native Pride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "Vale-folk" are an invention from _[A Very Rain of Sparrows](http://www.tolkienfanfiction.com/Story_Read_Head.php?STid=841)_ : they're the native population of non-Dúnedain in Gondor and have their own distinct dialect that shows in the last sentence.

It's the one thing they've taught the Westmen, or so the Vale-folk claim. And there're worse things to teach, not that you'd know it – not much love for what weren't off their drowned isle. But in The Bottle, on the wharf, it'll sing out evenings.  
  
"Poor man's harp," Westmen say. Ha! Adris'll shame the calluses off any harper thinks to stroke his _Glinda_. Fingers flying, bow afire, he'll jig the tavern down.  
  
" _Ge_ , what it is?" one Northern newcomer asks, staring at the curves – like a man in love. Adris grins.  
  
"Got different names, but it _'t'ent_ some Westman's `vi-o-lin'…"

* * *

Author's Note: The "Vale-folk" are an invention from _[A Very Rain of Sparrows](http://www.tolkienfanfiction.com/Story_Read_Head.php?STid=841)_ : they're the native population of non-Dúnedain in Gondor and have their own distinct dialect that shows in the last sentence.

Prompt: bottle, wharf, violin   



	4. In the Blind Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

"Cursed squalling!"  
  
Violins screeched in _The Moon-high Wharf,_ hurrying the two Pelargir guards along their night watch. A quick eye and light cast down alleys for troubl—   
  
Something towhead froze.   
  
"Hoi!" Haldarion called. The boy shrank, trembling. Haldarion grabbed an arm, hard, shook, demanding, "What's your business? Well?"  
  
"Hal." His partner intervened; the boy fled before his look.  
  
"What? Little Longneck lice–"  
  
"He's mute," Ambarin interrupted. "Harmless. Lives somewhere" – he gestured towards The Bottle – "with his sister."  
  
Haldarion eyed Ambarin speculatively. "Sister, eh?" Ambarin said naught. His partner snorted, then clapped his shoulder. "Fine. Let's go!"

* * *

 Prompt: bottle, wharf, violin, moon  



	5. As Above, So Below

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

**Author's Note** : The dueling edicts scenario I'm drawing from [Descent.](http://www.tolkienfanfiction.com/Story_Read_Head.php?STid=842) Hopefully, it still makes sense in compressed form. 

* * *

The first edict nearly caused a riot. The second filled the streets – from Outwall Town to Violin Street to the Bottle – to unhappy, violent end. But law ruled: no Northmen nor Haradrim worked docks.   
  
_Damn Valacar and Castamir_ , Ambarin thought. _Bloody high-born feuds!_ Six months of anger got desperate quick: Pelargir's guardsmen felt a bad moon rising.  
  
Giggling made him turn to see some 'wharf monkeys' – _Damn foreign insults!_ – throw stones at ships from behind posts, then dart away. The Row's children, lately idled, daily wreaked petty vengeances.   
  
_Little blighters_ , he cursed grimly, giving chase, feeling all sliding towards blood…

* * *

Prompt: bottle, wharf, violin, moon, monkey  



	6. The Air Full of Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

T'was sunrise when Thrasja finished sweeping the violin spiders from their nightly webs at the tavern.  
  
Ranilo paid her, pressed a kerchief of tavern fare upon her: "For Audila."   
  
Departing, Thrasja walked towards the wharf. Streets monkeyed through The Bottle; she took a left when an alley forked.  
  
Lately, she felt the sky too open, the air overbroad, the moon a baleful eye. Desperate times meant thieving; Thrasja fingered the knife in her kirtle. But: _There's no one_ she thought.  
  
Still, she paused watchful at her door. Nothing stirred. Sighing, she went within to await her brother's return.

* * *

Prompt: bottle, wharf, violin, moon, monkey, fork  



	7. House of Favors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

  
**Author's Note** : Not for the kids, really...

  


* * *

  
'Tis  moonset when his shift ends.

"Brawling," he says. She smiles, and in the lonely quiet, amid bottles, forks and dishes, pays his "fee" while the spiders monkey up their silks to watch.

She doesn't like him – less than his captain, even. He's a hole in his heart: greencoated, he's cruel on the wharf, in the Row.

So she'll play him like a violin. He'll not trouble her house of "Longnecks" if he's pleased.

"Thought Northmen could drink," he teases, buttoning up as Ranilo rinses her mouth. "Til tonight."

She's others to pay 'til tonight... "Good day, Haldarion."

* * *

  


Prompt: bottle, wharf, violin, moon, monkey, fork, hole


	8. The Chain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

On the wharf, Dor-en-Ernil's royal pennant flies. Behind locked doors, treason's brewing. 

Lady-in-waiting Isilwen's old Riverfork nobility, from the Ethir, proud and faithful. Faith's hard kept these mixed days, but she's determined. There're always holes…

The flautist knows a violinist, who when his "lady moon" shines right, drops a tune to tell "the monkeys": time to gibber up those trees… Down through the Row, mouth to ear to a swart Haradric parfumière's hand. She bottles it, tells a mute unwitting boy: "For my love" – who'll give it to a merchant. 

So seeming innocent, yet word goes North: Castamir courts swans...

* * *

Prompt: bottle, wharf, violin, moon, monkey, fork, hole, lock  


 


	9. Tis A Truth Generally Acknowledged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

When lords duel, their favors divide the lowly.  
  
A wail, violin-high, goes up by _Moon-high Wharf_ , then shouts, sounds of struggle. When guardsmen arrive, there's one man down, three on another, a woman and a crowd.  
  
"What monkey business...?" Haldarion snarls, wrestling one Southron from golden-haired prey.   
  
They're all three sheets winded – bottle-broke, utterly forked, the Southrons screaming: "Longneck scum!"  
  
The battered Southron woman just rocks, keening. Ambarin grimaces. _The grievance of idled hands!_  
  
"Lock holes for you," he mutters. 'Tis but a beginning: the crowd's discontent's ugly promise of more – mayhap worse – tomorrow...

* * *

Prompt: bottle, wharf, violin, moon, monkey, fork, hole, lock, sheet  



	10. Dog Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

"Haurnja" is "hornblower," an analogue for the Éorlingas' Béma. 

* * *

Summer rose in sheets of rage. From the wharf to The Bottle – all through the Row – patrols doubled,  yet violence struck like forked lightning, like a drunken monkey: here, there – wherever.   
  
Violins blaze at wakes; each night's a Bloodmoon. Northmen girls like Thrasja walk with friends, not to be the next revenge; Haradrim women hole up under lock. All men go about unfriendly. Ranilo lets the guardsmen in.  
  
Audaliufs goes quietly mornings, wary and afraid. The parfumière smiles sadly, gives him a bottle – "For my love."  
  
Her Northman lover pays a copper, sighs: "Pendant's swinging, lad. Pray Haurnja for rain!" 

* * *

Prompt: bottle, wharf, violin, moon, monkey, fork, hole, lock, sheet, pendant  



	11. Night Walkers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

The moon like crystal sheds watery light on wharf and river, falling in sheets upon Pelargir. Fears monkey in shadows. The eye plays tricks – what lies therein? Death? In The Bottle, darkness has holes to hide him in.

Thrasja walks alone tonight. Unwise. When the road forks blindly, she clutches Haurnja's pendant close.

Wise men stay locked in nights, but who can turn coins, works: she's ale to pour; violin tucked under arm, Adris has dirges to play.

Movement catches his eye: green, flowing between shadows – following her.

Greencoat. Adris bites his lip, then raises his bow: _Good luck, lass!_

* * *

  


Prompt: bottle, wharf, violin, moon, monkey, fork, hole, lock, sheet, pendant, crystal


	12. Blind Man's Bluff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

Captain Balhir overlooks the city in ink, tracing the well-worn sheet: from keep to wharf, and back to The Bottle.   
  
_Mooncalf monkeys_ , he snorts derisively, lays a fork on Violin Street, handle keep-wards. The many tines slide Row-ward, like snakes into their holes.   
  
_There's a leak_ , he's told. _Find it!_ Lord Vorondur and Castamir want some new municipal pendants – "Longnecks" indeed!   
  
Crystal clear, what's wanted; he but needs some cookie crumbs to follow. So he'll ensure the lock-up's full: desperate folk'll talk.   
_  
Won't be only Longnecks swinging_ , he smiling muses. _Who'll live together can hang together._..

* * *

 Prompt: bottle, wharf, violin, moon, monkey, fork, hole, lock, sheet, pendant, crystal, cookie

Half-way to day twenty-four! 


	13. Heat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

All hail, Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing", and the power of the hyphen...

* * *

From the wharf, Anduin gleams like crystal in sun's long light. The river runs slow; the air is heavy with its own stillness. From Rath Tirin to The Bottle, to Violin Street, guardsmen make rounds and arrests. The afternoon heat's a dizzying blood-letter:   
  
"Piss-locked, caste-crossed, monkey-holed – "   
  
"Sheet-wearing, dirt-faced, fork-tongued –"  
  
"Feckless, cock-strutting, tall-leg, Elf-spit – "  
  
"– Longneck filth-eating –"  
  
" – sweetstink, horseshit-selling – "  
  
" – Ship rat, cloud-headed, Sunset sea-swillers– "  
  
" – swine-porking defilers of–"  
  
" – _cookied_ sons of whores!"  
  
"Moon-brained bastards," Haldarion mutters, as they pass a knot of Northmen. "Choke them with their own pendants!"  
  
Ambarin just sighs.   
  


* * *

  


Prompt: bottle, wharf, violin, moon, monkey, fork, hole, lock, sheet, pendant, crystal, cookie, letter


	14. Askew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

She lives wharf-side of The Bottle, in a cramped hole with that moon-eyed monkey brother. Works Ranilo's tavern – her pet, by the kerchief that's never filled with Northman cookies. The lad turns a little money, too, and they get by.

Thrasja walks nightly to work pendant in one hand, dagger in the other against forked over lads. Smart – 'tis crystal clear some would have her, pretty Goldilocks, in some alley. Like that Vale-folk violinist, watching her letter-sharp lately.

_Too bad, Brownie,_ Haldarion smirks. _As on the streets, so 'twixt the sheets: you'll bow to you betters..._

* * *

  


Prompt: bottle, wharf, violin, moon, monkey, fork, hole, lock, sheet, pendant, crystal, cookie, letter, money


	15. Storm Front

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

The moon scythes the morning – crystalline sickle that cuts summer loose. Audaliufs can feel it on the air from the wharf: rain. Damp lies a slick sheet on cobblestones – Fall hangs pendant on the Dog Days' tail.  
  
His bottles have a lick of wet. This morn, men patch roof holes, test monkey-locks, re-letter worn signs ere the rains come – mend what's marred. Haradric taverners smile at him more easily, though 'tis cookies they give now – money's tight after this bad season.   
  
The violinist, forked and weary, plays softly to the day for no coin, just gladness. Relief's coming...  
  


* * *

Prompt: bottle, wharf, violin, moon, monkey, fork, hole, lock, sheet, pendant, crystal, cookie, letter, money, tail


	16. To Everything A Season

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

The ships holed up at wharf bob and sway as lightning forks overhead, dancing monkey-like from cloud to cloud. Moon and sun haven't shown for days; even greencoats are scarce.  
  
Behind locked windows, pendant lanterns glow crystalline bright. Like stiff sheets in the laundry, backs bend, sag – Northman and Southron, Vale-folk and Westmen find ways to neighboring tavern chairs and a shared bottle or cookie, and no one minds the violin.   
  
But uneasy peace is fragile: men of might and money can afford their quarrels. Isilwen dares no letters, but sends summer's tailing word north: _Lebennin looks southward_...  
  


* * *

Prompt: bottle, wharf, violin, moon, monkey, fork, hole, lock, sheet, pendant, crystal, cookie, letter, money, tail, chair.


	17. Gracious Living

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

From atop her chair, Thrasja forks rags into holes, monkeying the cloth about to hold. 'Tis dank like the wharf, though without violin-prowed fishing skiffs.   
  
Just a candle in a half-bottle – the glassier's gift – and Northman poorbread – _cookie_ – alongside Ranilo's fare.  
  
Audila returns soaked, golden locks sheeting about his face, but he grins a moon, raises a bright bottle. Could be crystal, so fine it seems. The scent...   
  
"Perfume?" she says. "For me?" Audila nods, withdrawing this morn's money. Though unlettered, she knows it won't buy an oxtail. But perfume… she grips her pendant prayerfully: they'll stay housed next month.   
  


* * *

Prompt: bottle, wharf, violin, moon, monkey, fork, hole, lock, sheet, pendant, crystal, cookie, letter, tail, money, chair, bread


	18. The Laws of Economics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

Bottles and ale keep them, but cookie's their daily bread. The mooncalf brother gurns hunger; Thrasja'll worry a hole in that pendant. Likely sell their chair and her pretty locks to violinists next.  
  
Will she sell on wharf? he wonders. Or catch tavern-forked lads who'd seed her – spare him their monkeying… or Ranilo Hal's attentions…?  
  
Uneasy thoughts. Law's letter holds all women equal after dark – if they're for money, even Dúnedain and Northmen can meet...  
  
Summer's rage has passed into crystal autumnal skies; still, Ambarin, wretched, tails her home. Later twisting in his sheets, he dreams wetly of her helplessness.  
  


* * *

Prompt: bottle, wharf, violin, moon, monkey, fork, hole, lock, sheet, pendant, crystal, cookie, letter, money, tail, chair, bread, seed


	19. Cold Trails

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

First frost leaves the ground gleaming like crystal. Men abandon their boats to ropes and monkey-locks, leave the wharf for The Row's taverns.  
  
Violins sing of warmth in bottled peaches. Soak cookie in it, and poorbread's fit to eat. Summer's grievance lingers, but against weather and hunger, common poverty prevails. 'Tis a new moon, unmoneyed men say.  
  
Problematic, Balhir thinks, hunched in his chair. Pendant's swung back. His snakes turned tail down their holes, drew ice sheets overhead. Nothing happens when nothing happens.  
  
So something must happen. Their lordships agree. To the letter, even: tough winter seeding demands a pitchfork…  
  


* * *

Prompt: bottle, wharf, violin, moon, monkey, fork, hole, lock, sheet, pendant, crystal, cookie, letter, money, tail, chair, bread, seed, peach


	20. Fragile Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

Harpers use tuning forks to play true. Balhir seeks the note that'll shatter crystal, as it were. He must break the bottle just _so_.  
  
For whoever's in the keep must pass word down the pendant chain, making a trail – like bread crumbs. The wharf's moon-distant yet. Balhir needs a monkey in the middle to chair. The flautist…? Sheeted rag boy tailed him for a copper – seed money that led to a violinist.   
  
Cookied, Vale-folk violinist, just beneath keep's notice…   
  
Peaches. The letter of right's still wet the snowy morn Balhir meets him in the lock-holes:   
  
"Adris, is it? Let's talk…"  
  


* * *

Prompt: bottle, wharf, violin, moon, monkey, fork, hole, lock, sheet, pendant, crystal, cookie, letter, money, tail, chair, bread, seed, peach, snow


	21. Tip The Bottle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

In the lock-holes, it's called 'tip the bottle': none can turn letter who's marked, so it's wet sheets, snow-cold on bare skin, for their violinist. It's days without even poorbread cookie crumbs, and kneeling, arms pendant overhead, for hours, while comfortably chaired, Balhir rests boots on bowed back.  
  
"No money's worth the fork and rope," Ambarin says, after a shift spent watching eyes moon-white with fear and glassy as crystal plead mercy.  
  
Hal snorts. "Savior of wharf monkeys! You're peach fuzz," he declares. "It'll end soon, sweetheart." Hal grins at Ambarin's skepticism. "Seedy little tail's got a pretty Longnecked weakness..."  
  


* * *

Prompt: bottle, wharf, violin, moon, monkey, fork, hole, lock, sheet, pendant, crystal, cookie, letter, money, tail, chair, bread, seed, peach, snow, rope


	22. Little Lambs Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

The moon's more color than the sheet-pale lock-hole lass. Thrasja, shaking, reaches for her confiscated pendant. Likely already threatened – their violinist must turn letter.   
  
Ambarin brings bread, tells her: "It's not cookie." Then: "You live in The Bottle, with Audaliufs. Little monkey counts snowed-in boats at wharf." She stares. "I've tailed you," he admits.   
  
"But – "  
  
"'Tis seeding peaches: they'd chair, rope and fork you for Adris. 'T'isn't about you or money or..." Helpless tears begin. "I could help."   
  
One moment, she's his, 'til his driving 'if' shows. She wavers; his crystal image shatters.   
  
Self-sickened, Ambarin abandons her.   
  


* * *

Prompts: bottle, wharf, violin, moon, monkey, fork, hole, lock, sheet, pendant, crystal, cookie, letter, money, tail, chair, bread, seed, snow, peach, rope, boat


	23. Kindling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

Six snowy days to tip the bottle, but Balhir's violinist turns letter. Everything's planned: hold the Goldilocks hostage, send their monkey, bearing false report, to play 'lady moon's' tune. Cookied bread crumbs'll spill down the hole to the wharf – like glowing crystal seeds to that boat north. Tail them, and he'll rope Pelargir some new 'pendants.'   
  
It's peaches. But their lordships put a fork in his works: they want _real_ blood to report. In his chair, Balhir stares at that instruction sheet. Men who write such don't like 'baggage,' but the reward…  
  
For that money, he'll burn their docks himself.  
  


* * *

Prompt: bottle, wharf, violin, moon, monkey, fork, hole, lock, sheet, pendant, crystal, cookie, letter, money, tail, chair, bread, seed, peach, snow, rope, boat, baggage


	24. So It Goes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

  
**Author's Note** : Kin-strife for Christmas...

  


* * *

History's ropes bind men to pendants already swung, lade them like boats with baggage destined for one wharf.  
  
Needs a blow to cut such ties: that pretty chair in Osgiliath puts candles to kindling...  
  
A mute'll find her beneath sheets of crystalline snow, unlucky Goldilocks. A violinist'll turn letter on some Dúnedain sailors: poorbread cookie crumbs for men to tail to law's indifference, that unleashes bottled rage.   
  
Fire in the hole...  
  
From afar, moneyed men see only foreign monkeys rampaging, not the seeds that grew this winter peach. History's course forks: they'll raise a new moon, and call him 'Castamir.'  
  


* * *

Prompt: bottle, wharf, violin, moon, monkey, fork, hole, lock, sheet, pendant, crystal, cookie, letter, money, tail, chair, bread, seed, peach, snow, rope, boat, baggage, candle

And that's a wrap!


	25. So It Goes: Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas are 24 drabbles on the Kin-strife. And victory over the incredibly difficult format Juno and Aranel have chosen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of Day 24's prompts are used. I felt I needed to deal with the deliberately anonymous tragedy of the last drabble and restore the names in a way I couldn't do in a hundred words.

The new moon lasts sixteen long years of war and fearful deeds. Lettered lawlessness guts the kingdom and hundreds of thousands of unfortunate stomachs before the end – not that anyone's counting.  
  
For no one wants to remember, later. When his children's children's children ask Ambarin what he did, he says he seeded his land and hunted geese. Stood on the wharf, by the boats, and called to them.   
  
"Geese don't come to calls," they say, and he says that monkeys do if you leave cookie, which makes no sense. They leave an old man to his mutterings.   
  
He did hunt geese – Longnecks. Drove them out of Pelargir in the winter of 1432, raised his children on that blood money.   
  
They're back now with Eldacar, of course, the Longnecks, and every last one of them he meets is the girl in the lock-holes. He knows Hal did her – both ways. All ways. Left a pretty, pious corpse – he remembers the pendant wound carefully round her hand – on the snow that moonless night. Fitting holocaust to fire one man's awful dream.   
  
And Haldarion died, too, in the war of restoration – the first one, that's now called the rebellion. Got shot in the back taking a piss in the river. So it's told. Had a funny rope line on his neck even so. Better than the Captain, though, who threw up blood one morning and died two days later, his belly all blotched purple. People found a lot of funny ways to die in those days.   
  
Not him, though. He wasn't ever good at it – too much by the book, he somehow always found himself safe in the charge. He never took a swim in the river in his armor. Never tripped and fell on an inconvenient sword or knife or stick. His bread and meat were never worse than anyone else's. He was nothing to anyone – peach fuzz, who never did aught.  
  
Or so they think, who sit in gilded chairs and make holes for men to fall in. Because he did do the boy himself. It was a mercy, really. Lad was already rail-thin, and tearing his hair out over his sister til he couldn't see for blood in his eyes, though he felt them burning a hole in him even so...   
  
But they caught the parfumière, and everyone on Isilwen's line, and really, he would've hanged anyway. Poor speechless boy, better to go gently – hand over nose and mouth while he slept, and Ambarin sang "Hush, babe, close your eyes" – sweet lullaby he's sung a thousand times since to children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Over in minutes, and the boy never felt a thing. With the cell door locked snug, no one was the wiser but him and the shade walking in his steps. Boy's blind and mute now, but he lies beneath Ambarin every night like a sheet of crystal shards and sweetly torments him with loving images of his sister, who comes to lie quiet with him.  
  
His wife knows, he thinks. She's put him to bed countless times after he got forked on some bad bottle, and he'll weep a river of tears, babble apologies, tell her she's beautiful, beautiful – he wants to say he loves her, but even drink can't pry that from his tongue. He's not always sure who he's talking to – his dark-haired wife or the Goldilocks shade, but it doesn't matter.   
  
He's in his candlelight years now, though he's not so old, really. But he's dry – dry as the insects cocooned in spider silk. He spends a lot of time watching the violin spiders weave their webs and delicately drink their victims to their pulpy dregs. The Haradrim call Castamir 'The Spider King' – damn foreign insults, but it's true, it's true. He wonders if the insects go peacefully to sleep, like the boy in the cell, or if they're more like him – if they spend their last hours and days – which must be years to such short-lived things – feeling life run dry and empty, strangling in a spider's web, but not quick enough.   
  
He should quicken it, he thinks. He's a man, not an insect. But he never was very good at dying. Maybe if he'd had a talent for it, he'd have done something worth doing and gone out by hanging or the sword – maybe drawing and quartering. Burning - he'd be good tinder, bloodless as he is. There were so many ways to kill traitors once...   
  
But he's terrible at dying, and so he'll just tail out, and hopes one day soon to be forgotten. It would be sweet, to be forgotten. In the fading light, his ghosts await, more substantial by the day and he's afraid they will forgive him, they smile so gently sometimes. Children these days – no one wants to remember!   
  
Everything's so dry, so dry, but he just can't forget because – he weeps to say it – he's never been good at dying – not even to himself.   
  


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**Author's Note:** All of Day 24's prompts are used. I felt I needed to deal with the deliberately anonymous tragedy of the last drabble and restore the names in a way I couldn't do in a hundred words.

Thanks, Juno and Aranel, for hosting the game!


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